Surgical sponges or pads are commonly used in surgical procedures where body organs and delicate membranes and tissues are exposed. Since exposure to air subjects the body members to radically different environmental conditions than encountered in the moist warmth of the body, it is considered good surgical procedure to simulate an environment more nearly approaching the natural environment. Surgical sponges, moistened with warm saline, are therefore inserted into a body cavity to protect and isolate those organs and tissues not directly involved in the operative procedure. In addition, such sponges or pads are commonly used to absorb surplus body fluids, to serve as aids in grasping and displacing living organs, and to drape exposed organs and tissues to protect them from dehydration.
Conventional surgical sponges are formed of multiple layers of gauze-like material which are unified by lines of machine stitching which extend longitudinally, transversely, or both. Such unification of the multiple layers has been considered necessary to minimize the possibility of separate plies of gauze shifting in position with respect to each other, with the formation of undersirable and possibly trauma-inducing folds and wrinkles, either during use or during laundering and reclaiming. In general, pads made from bleached absorbent gauze have a relatively harsh hand and are not considered suitable for application to delicate body organs without pretreatment. Therefore, it is a common hospital practice to launder such sponges or pads before their initial use to soften the pads and render them less traumatic. Unfortunately, the laundering procedure introduces further disadvantages, since it may tend to create pills of fiber upon the surfaces of the pads. Such pills, if present, must be removed, ordinarily by a combing or picking operation, to avoid or reduce the danger that pills or lint might become detached during use of the pad and, if left within a patient, might produce a foreign body reaction. The laundering procedure might also tend to lubricate the fibrous yarns and thereby free incompletely entrained fibers. Laundering also increases the potential of contaminating the operative incision site by the introduction of residual bleaches, detergents, and other products of the washing process.
Problems in surgical sponge construction are discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,678,933, a proposed solution to lint release as disclosed therein consisting of enclosing or encapsulating the exposed fibers in a heat-disintegrated plastic film. Other patents illustrating the state of the art are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,834,390, 3,837,338, 3,837,344 and 3,837,950.